Toyota and Cincinnati Children’s Partner with Children’s Health to Launch Buckle Up for Life in North Texas

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National Education Program Expands to Toyota’s New Hometown to Help
Keep Kids Safe

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–What if there was a way to help prevent a leading cause of childhood
death, but three out of four of us were doing it wrong? The startling
truth is that 75 percent of car seats in the U.S. are not used correctly.1
Additionally, 78.6% of children inspected at The Safety Source-Injury
Prevention Service’s 2013 child passenger safety program at Children’s
Medical Center Dallas were riding incorrectly, or worse, arrived at
inspection stations unrestrained.2

To help address this, Toyota
and Cincinnati
Children’s have partnered with Children’s
Health, the leading pediatric health care system in North Texas, to
launch the national education program Buckle
Up for Life in North Texas. During the six week program, trained
specialists work closely with parents and caregivers to teach them about
all aspects of car seats, booster seats and seat belts. The program is
offered in English and Spanish and provides free seats to families in
need.

“Buckle Up for Life is a great example of how Toyota partners
with others to help solve problems in our communities,” said Mike Goss,
General Manager, Social Innovation, Toyota Motor North America. “One of
our deepest priorities is helping people get to their destinations
safely. We know Buckle Up for Life helps protect kids and we are
excited to share it with families in our new hometown of Plano and in
North Texas.”

“According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
automobile crashes are one of the leading causes of accidental death for
children,” said Christopher J. Durovich, president and chief executive
officer of Children’s Health. “Injury prevention and education are
critical components of our mission to make life better for children. The
partnership with Toyota and Cincinnati Children’s further extends our
care beyond the hospital walls – teaching families about proper car seat
safety with the ultimate goal of preventing unnecessary injury.”

Children’s Health joins leading children’s hospitals across the country
that have offered Buckle Up for Life. The program has reached
more than 30,000 people in 16 cities, including New York, Memphis,
Phoenix, Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles,
Philadelphia, Orange County, and San Antonio – and expands to new cities
each year. Toyota has provided funding for over 40,000 car seats for
families in need.

“For some people, car seats aren’t always the easiest things to figure
out – from choosing the right one to making sure the straps are tight
enough,” said Gloria Del Castillo, child passenger safety expert at
Cincinnati Children’s and senior outreach specialist for Buckle Up for
Life. “But in some situations, a properly installed seat can mean the
difference between life and death in a crash. That’s why Buckle Up
for Life is so important. Our children deserve no less.”

Buckle Up for Life was created by Toyota and Cincinnati
Children’s in 2004. In one city alone, the programnearly tripled
the use of proper car seats among participating families. Community
organizations that have offered the program say they have observed a
marked improvement in participants’ auto safety behaviors, including:

The average rate of children unrestrained in cars decreased from one
in four to fewer than one in 20;

The average rate of children in car seats increased from roughly one
in four to one in two; and

The use of seat belts by adults increased by an average of 13 percent,
from 68 percent to 81 percent.

Children’s HealthSM is the eighth-largest pediatric health
care provider in the nation and the leading pediatric health care system
in North Texas, providing a full spectrum of health care services – from
daily wellness and primary care to specialty visits and critical care.
Holding eight disease-specific care certifications from The Joint
Commission, Children’s Health has been consistently named one of the
nation’s top pediatric providers by U.S. News & World Report. The
Children’s Health system includes the flagship hospital Children’s
Medical Center Dallas, as well as Children’s Medical Center Plano, eight
specialty centers, 20 Children’s Health Pediatric Group primary care
practices, nine Our Children’s House rehabilitation facilities, home
health, physician services and the Children’s Medical Center Research
Institute at UT Southwestern. For more information, please visit www.childrens.com.

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM), the world’s top automaker and creator of the Prius, is
committed to building vehicles for the way people live through our
Toyota, Lexus and Scion brands. Over the past 50 years, we’ve built more
than 25 million cars and trucks in North America, where we operate 14
manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than
40,000 people (more than 32,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American
dealerships (1,500 in the U.S.) sold more than 2.5 million cars and
trucks (more than 2.2 million in the U.S.) in 2013 – and about 80
percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 20 years are still on
the road today.

Toyota partners with philanthropic organizations across the country,
with a focus on education, safety and the environment. As part of this
commitment, we share the company’s extensive know-how garnered from
building great cars and trucks to help community organizations and other
nonprofits expand their ability to do good. For more information about
Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.

About Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Cincinnati Children’s, a non-profit, pediatric, academic medical center
established in 1883, is internationally recognized for improving child
health and transforming delivery of care through fully integrated,
globally recognized research, education and innovation. It is one of the
top three recipients of pediatric research grants from the National
Institutes of Health, ranked third in the nation among all Honor Roll
hospitals in U.S. News and World Report’s Best Children’s Hospitals, and
a research and teaching affiliate of the University of Cincinnati’s
College of Medicine. Its patient population includes the eight-county
primary service area covering parts of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. A
destination for children with complex medical conditions, it also served
patients from all 50 states and nearly 70 countries during the past
year. Additional information can be found at www.cincinnatichildrens.org.